Gay celebrity Dan Savage on marriage: No monogamy if you don't like it.

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Male monogamy isn't the historical norm, which is why we need an institution whose function is to try to mitigate male libido. The reason that female monogomay is more critical has to do with issues of paternity. Think of the word "cuckold", which is the word used to describe the husband of an unfaithful wife. The origin of the term comes from the cuckoo bird, and its habit of laying its eggs in other birds' nests so that they will undertake the effort of raising them. The major biological difference between males and females is that males are predisposed to spread their DNA as broadly as possible, while females are predisposed to nurture and care for their far less numerous children. This is why males tend to be foragers or hunters, while females tend to be nesters. Given the above, a society in which men are free to pursue their instincts without restraint is going to be chaotic and dangerous. Men will compete for women without regard for longterm consequences, and women will be treated as commodities or toys. For an example of what that looks like in a western (non-tribal) context, just take a walk through any bad neighborhood. The feral children raised by single women and food stamps are the direct result. .

Throughout the known history of marriage in most of Europe, Asia, and North Africa, marriage and society have incorporated concubinage, mistresses, plural marriages and the freedom of men to have sex with women other than their wives as long as those women were not under the protection of another man or society through another convention. The institution of marriage did not evolve to control men, it evolved to define ownership and inheritance.

As for feral children, one theory has it that the way capitalism works in our society is affecting the gene pool, carrying some in one direction and some on a "collision course with neanderthal man (or something like that)". The theory is that as the best and the brightest team up with other best and brightest, they leave the worst and dimmest to procreate, carrying the gene pool in reverse.

While you were hanging yourself , on someone else's words
Dying to believe in what you heard
I was staring straight into the shining sun

The difference in language reflects a critical difference between the genders, which is that men and women seek different things from their relationships. Men tend to seek physical gratification, and are willing to provide financial and physical support in return for it. Women seek emotional commitment, and are willing to provide physical gratification and houshold support in return. But, this doesn't take into account the critical beneficiaries of this, which are the children, who get a stable environment and material and emotional support from both parents. The point is that a man who violates his marriage vows will be seen as a cad (another anachronism), who is siring progeny without concern for their material well-being, while a woman who violates her vows is seen as bringing in another man's issue, to be cared for by fraud.

In other words, it is economic, but the economics are based on the very real differences between the genders.

Bolded- do you really think that statement is supported by culture, history, and literature? We routinely accept that great men of the past had multiple wives, or a single wife and multiple paramours. We have celebrated love affairs between great men and their mistress, occasionally even their boyfriend. Historical we view the wife as a matter of duty for great men. No one confuses royal marriages with love, except the idiots who followed around Diana and Charles. The occasion of a kind and queen actually being in love, appears to have been so rare that when it happened people wrote books, songs, plays, and poems about it.

Seems to me that from an historical perspective, monogamy was an institution born of the poor. Hell, even some of the Popes had wives and girlfriends.

While you were hanging yourself , on someone else's words
Dying to believe in what you heard
I was staring straight into the shining sun

Throughout the known history of marriage in most of Europe, Asia, and North Africa, marriage and society have incorporated concubinage, mistresses, plural marriages and the freedom of men to have sex with women other than their wives as long as those women were not under the protection of another man or society through another convention. The institution of marriage did not evolve to control men, it evolved to define ownership and inheritance.

Bolded: The institution of marriage did control men, in order to protect women, as well as to define ownership and inheritance, but why does inheritance matter? It matters for the reasons cited, because a man under every legal and moral code was expected to care for his offspring, and was not responsible for the offspring of others. In other words, he is responsible for his contribution to the gene pool, and nobody else's. Someone who slips his own genetic package into another man's home, via his wife, has robbed him of his legacy and tricked him into providing support for someone else's children.

Originally Posted by Novaheart

As for feral children, one theory has it that the way capitalism works in our society is affecting the gene pool, carrying some in one direction and some on a "collision course with neanderthal man (or something like that)". The theory is that as the best and the brightest team up with other best and brightest, they leave the worst and dimmest to procreate, carrying the gene pool in reverse.

Yeah, we've all seen Idiocracy, but there's one problem with it, and that is that the feral kids aren't stupid, just unsocialized. Just watch a drug dealer do math sometime and you'll see my point. That's not to say that stupid people don't reproduce at a higher rate, but they also tend to die off at a higher rate. Think Darwin Awards.

Originally Posted by Novaheart

Bolded- do you really think that statement is supported by culture, history, and literature? We routinely accept that great men of the past had multiple wives, or a single wife and multiple paramours. We have celebrated love affairs between great men and their mistress, occasionally even their boyfriend. Historical we view the wife as a matter of duty for great men. No one confuses royal marriages with love, except the idiots who followed around Diana and Charles. The occasion of a kind and queen actually being in love, appears to have been so rare that when it happened people wrote books, songs, plays, and poems about it.

The statement is certainly true, or at least, used to be. That's not to say that there weren't violations of the norm, or that those violations were always seen in a negative light, but in Western Europe, especially since the advent of monogamous Christianity, that has been the ideal.

Originally Posted by Novaheart

Seems to me that from an historical perspective, monogamy was an institution born of the poor. Hell, even some of the Popes had wives and girlfriends.

No, monogamy was a middle class institution. The very rich could insulate themselves from the consequences of poor decisions, while the very poor simply lived with the results. It was the merchant class and gentry that promoted the values that we've come to know as the norm, while the elites and the dregs undermined them. The civic virtue that we admire in Rome came from the property owners and free citizens, not the debauched emporers or the mobs that they fed and entertained. The Pope may have had a mistress, but his far less affluent critic, Martin Luther, did not (his marriage came only after he had broken with the church, and this included his very public opposition to celibacy on Biblical grounds). The Kings of England may have enjoyed the charms of courtiers, but the gentry-bred Oliver Cromwell did not.

But the gay movement spearheaded by Dan Savage, which has become a key arsenal for the Democratic Party, is not based on gayness, but rather on Histrionic Personality Disorder.

The histrionic craves attention, makes every activity lascivious, and fears the disapproval or disinterest of others. Why do gay activists go undercover and fish for reasons to smear Marcus Bachmann? Marcus Bachmann has nothing to do with gay issues. But HPD gays cannot stand anything in the world getting attention, if they are not the central focus.

Histrionics blame others for their disappointments. "No, it's not my fault for failing to stand up for myself when bullies called me a pansy -- it's Republicans! It's the Bible! It's the fact that I can only get civil unions!" "I got HIV -- it's Reagan's fault for not talking about AIDs until Rock Hudson died!"

With histrionics, melodrama always escalates. If gay marriage doesn't pass, more kids will jump off bridges, helpless blond youths will get murdered in Wyoming, and closeted men will give their witless wives AIDs. Part of HPD is the inability to let other people's stories be independent. If you are 100% gay and can't change, then everyone else must have been born into their identity and can't change; someone who wants to change or does subdue his sexual urges is a deluded victim of repression, a despicable ex-gay. Other people's decision-making threatens you because it isn't what you want; you are easily frustrated; you feel slighted merely by not being adored and vindicated.

I don't think he is. I think he's saying that it is common in heterosexual marriage. Some people like to compare their standard of perfect heterosexual marriage to their worst portrayal of homosexual marriages. And timing being everything and with a Mormon running for president we also need to talk about plural marriage.

In other words- stop pretending that the "ideal" is the norm, it simply isn't. Statistically, most men have had a sexual relationship outside their marriage. It's the stuff divorces are made of, and we all know what the divorce rates are.

Divorce itself is part of this discussion. A person who has been married three times, is not a monogamous person in the strictest sense of the word. Her virginity is not restored by court order. She is a woman who has had three husbands. The fact that she didn't have them all at once might mean something to you, but it's a workaround of the rules. It's called serial polygamy.